


Transient

by lady_krysis (saekhwa)



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: 3000-5000 Words, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, M/M, Podfic Available
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-13
Updated: 2009-12-13
Packaged: 2017-10-04 09:30:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saekhwa/pseuds/lady_krysis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When he blinks the snow out of his eyes, there's a woman whose pale skin looks like glass, shimmering translucent blue in the sunlight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Transient

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://community.livejournal.com/space_wrapped/profile)[**space_wrapped**](http://community.livejournal.com/space_wrapped/). I signed up for a different prompt, but this is what came out instead, a re-telling of _The Snow Queen_. A million and a half thanks and ♥ go to [](http://lunesque.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**lunesque**](http://lunesque.dreamwidth.org/) for the quickest turnaround on a beta that I have ever seen.
> 
> [Podfic is available!](http://reena-jenkins.livejournal.com/42565.html) :D Read by [reena_jenkins on livejournal](http://reena-jenkins.livejournal.com).

I.

The cold is nothing compared to the bruises that ache over Jim's ribs with each trudging step through the snow. The one on his right bicep throbs when he folds his arms, trying to retain some heat in his chest, but each heartbeat feels like sludge, each breath cold and harsh in his throat.

His left foot lands harder than he expects it to, and his whole body follows the momentum. His right knee halts the fall, gloved hands spread flat on solid-packed snow, and he pushes himself back up, dusting off the white flakes from his jacket. He hates winters because they trap him in a house where Uncle Frank's anger has no place to go.

Jim blows out a breath and watches it puff and curl white and then spiral outward. He stares until it vanishes into a white flurry that comes out of nowhere, the snow lifting up in a swirl of white. When he blinks the snow out of his eyes, there's a woman whose pale skin looks like glass, shimmering translucent blue in the sunlight. Jim takes a step to the left to see if she'll vanish, but she doesn't. She extends a hand to him, icy fingertips tracing one cheek. Jim shivers and takes a step backward.

Her voice is like crystal, like icicles shattering against pavement and wood. Her hand is back on Jim's cheek, and she promises him escape. It sounds like a great deal to Jim, so he lets her tilt his face upward.

He flinches from the first kiss, his mouth going numb and his throat tightening up like the first time he ate shellfish and discovered he was allergic.

Jim falls to his knees, gasping, as the woman wraps him in a white cloak. Or maybe it's the fall of her hair or maybe it's just Jim passing out from lack of oxygen. All he knows is that she's singing, and it reminds him of his mom.

II.

When Leonard has to let his father go — patricide a numbing echo in his mind — he hates everything about this world.

There are no demons with a magical mirror, only the reality of a young man who had to watch his father die and then see the hollow look in his mother's eyes when she turned away and couldn't look back. She told him it wasn't his fault and that she loved him, but love isn't strong enough for that sort of pain.

Leonard sits outside on the porch, his face in his hands and his shoulders shuddering when the tears finally come, dripping like blood down to his wrists. When a beautiful young woman emerges as if from the snow itself, cloaked all in white, he's too bone-weary to care. Her pale hands are cold on his cheeks, and the tears spilling from his eyes freeze and fall like ice from the trees. She brushes them away with a gentle sweep of her slender fingers and promises him everything.

Leonard shivers — from the cold, from the dull thud of his heart — it doesn't matter. He nods and rasps a barely audible, "Please."

Her kiss is as cold as her touch, her lips as smooth as glass when they press against his. Leonard draws away with a gasp, struggling to breathe past the chill that has settled in his very bones. But the woman's hands are implacable and draw him forward again. When their lips meet a second time, Leonard sighs into the kiss, everything else forgotten.

~*~

The only name she offers is the Snow Queen, and Leonard's not sure if he should think of her as Snow Queen or The Snow Queen, as if the article makes a damn difference.

He huddles against the cold, worried that he doesn't feel it, worried that he doesn't care. When the sleigh slows as they near a village, a castle made entirely of ice looming in the background, Leonard removes one glove to check his hands for frostbite. His hands are numb, but there's no indication of anything more serious, and he presses down on his nail bed just to be doubly sure.

"This is your new home," she says, and he forgets about how cold his hands are when she speaks. Her voice is too compelling to ignore.

"They my new neighbors?" Leonard asks, motioning to the people bustling in and out of quaint cottage houses, some of them peeking out the door to take stock of him.

"They can be your friends."

Leonard frowns, the downturned curve of his mouth familiar, and the scowl that makes his brows furrow is even more familiar. He catches sight of a young-looking fellow stumbling out of what could be a bar or a shop. The sight of blood is all it takes for Leonard to gruffly snap, "Stop," and jump into something that makes him feel solid and sure.

He hops out of the sleigh before it comes to a complete stop and almost slips in an icy patch. He manages to keep himself upright and stalks toward the brawl, grabbing the bigger man's jacket sleeve before he can take another swing at the kid sprawled on the ground.

"One more time, and it's a boot to your ass," Leonard warns, voice low, almost a growl.

He feels a tendril of heat through the center of his chest, and an elusive memory of what that feels like skirting the edges of his memories, but he doesn't think much about it because the man looks like he's going to take a swing. His eyes flick past Leonard, though, and he drops his hands and takes a deliberate step back. Leonard doesn't question it, just drops to one knee and grabs the kid's chin to take a look at him.

"I had it handled," the kid says, using the back of his hand to wipe away a smear of blood before he looks up at Leonard with the bluest eyes Leonard's ever seen.

"I can tell," Leonard says, probing the line of the guy's jaw with the tips of his fingers. "Nothing stops a fist like your teeth. Chin up."

The kid obeys with a wild grin, mouth spread so wide and open that Leonard can see the blood staining his teeth. Surprisingly, they're all there — or at least look it — and with a grin that big, Leonard can say the kid's jaw isn't broken. After a quick exam, Leonard suspects nothing more serious than several contusions, a split lip, and a swollen eye. He doesn't discount a concussion, though, but the kid's eyes are too bright and aware, never wavering from Leonard's face while he looks the kid over.

"So am I cleared for duty, doc?" the guy asks and grins, swiping his tongue over his teeth. His Adam's apple bobs when he swallows what's probably a mouthful of blood.

"James," the Snow Queen says, stepping forward, her cloak swirling up before falling gently back to the ground. "Mark."

"Just a friendly disagreement," James says, using Leonard as leverage to push himself up to his feet.

The Snow Queen looks at Mark. He glares at James but curtly nods. "Yes, ma'am. We were settling some differences."

"See?" James slaps a hand to Mark's shoulder so hard that he pitches forward, but James grabs the back of his jacket and hauls him back up. "Careful there, buddy." James grins at the Snow Queen. "But anyway, as you can see, Cupcake and I worked it all out. So who's the new guy?"

Leonard huffs out a breath but answers with a gruff, "Leonard McCoy."

James takes Leonard's hand in a firm grip, holds it longer than Leonard thinks is entirely necessary as he says, "James T. Kirk. Call me Jim." Jim releases Leonard only so he can drape an arm across Leonard's shoulders, the Snow Queen, Mark, and apparently his injuries ignored. "Let's get a drink. On me."

"How about we stop the bleeding and take care of that eye before you lose it?" Leonard says, and he doesn't know what Jim finds so goddamn funny about losing an eye.

"I like your dedication, Len."

And goddamn it to hell if Jim isn't a handful after that.

III.

Jim doesn't ask about Leonard's past. Everyone the Snow Queen brings here has one, too personal and sometimes too dark to be shared with anyone whose curiosity gets piqued. It's in Leonard's face, though, the quiet moments that Jim catches when they're sharing a bottle between them, like Leonard's forgotten something he should remember. It had to have been bad if the Snow Queen gave Leonard a second kiss.

Jim had declined it. He didn't need to forget, just get away, and this village off in the middle of nowhere is perfect for that, even though Jim finds himself wishing for a little more. He figures maybe he has that in Leonard with his gravelly voice and his cursing and a scowl that Jim has been on the receiving end of too many times to count — the record being twenty-seven in one day. Give or take. Jim's not that meticulous.

They stumble home after another late night. Literally. Jim slipped twice, overbalanced, and tugged Bones down with him, none of which was unintentional. Jim likes the weight of Bones on top of him, and he likes the way Bones' eyes darken when he scowls but helps Jim up anyway and then dusts Jim off, his fingers lingering on Jim's chin when he searches for any injuries like Jim's that much of a disaster.

When they stumble into Leonard's house, Jim tumbling once more and taking Leonard to the floor, Jim laughs, cheeks flushed from the cold and the alcohol.

"Goddamn it, Jim! You're falling on purpose!"

"Yeah, maybe," Jim says and then takes what he's been after all day.

The kiss shouldn't be so hot, not when they live in a state of perpetual winter, but it is, every time, as hot and frenzied as the first kiss they shared a week after Leonard had arrived.

Leonard stiffens beneath Jim, but then moans at the hot thrust of Jim's tongue into his mouth, his hands fisting in Jim's jacket, and it only builds when Leonard's teeth sink into Jim's bottom lip and tug.

Jim wants to fight for him; he wants Len to fight back, and he wants Len to remember everything so Jim can be there and tell him that life sucked but look what it got them.

Everything is hurried and rushed, bordering on desperate, and Jim cries out Leonard's name, fingers digging into Leonard's shoulders, blood thundering through his ears.

Leonard doesn't fight, though, and in the end, Jim can't stay in one place forever.

IV.

_"I don't believe in fear," Jim had said._

And he hadn't. Not when he trudged through the snow to the Snow Queen's castle, not when he pounded on the smooth ice walls and threatened to scale the turrets.

_"You're so afraid all the time, Bones, and you're going to look up one day, and I'll be gone because you were too afraid to fight for us." _

And Jim is. Gone. Saved by some man or some woman. The name doesn't matter so much as the fact that it's not Leonard, who's still stuck in the Snow Queen's domain because he was too damn scared to say 'stay' or 'I'm coming with you' or 'Damn it, Jim, isn't it obvious?' Not obvious enough.

Months later, Leonard tries, and he thinks he sees a glimmer of something in Jocelyn. She's bright and fierce, and when he sees her, her smile shines in her eyes. She's a woman who's not afraid to smile; she's a woman who's not afraid at all.

So Leonard tells the Snow Queen, "Her. Let me love her please."

The Snow Queen stares at him for so long that Leonard is about to jump into a tirade about how they're supposed to have a choice, that they don't come here to lose everything, but then she nods, a slow inclination of her head that has relief crashing so fast through Leonard's body that his knees go weak.

Leonard fights for Jocelyn, and Jocelyn fights for him, with her words and her heart and her fists until she marches up to the Snow Queen's throne and tells him, "Len, next time, _ask_."

Leonard laughs, the sound strange to his own goddamn ears, but Jocelyn is there, her hand on his arm and a smile on her face. He draws her into a fierce hug, his face buried in the crook of her neck, her hair tickling his face, and all he can say is, "I love you, Joss. Marry me?"

"We didn't work this damn hard to be friends," she teases but pulls away to look up into his eyes, and he can feel his chest expand with a held breath, his heart speeding up. "And since you're hard headed, the answer is yes, by the way."

Leonard thinks this is it; this is his happy ending, and it is. He lives it for seven good, long years, enough to have a baby girl in the third that he loves with his whole goddamn heart. The kiss he drops to the top of her bald head, her tiny damn fists and her tiny damn feet make his heart swell so big in his chest that he cries for the first time since the Snow Queen kissed him. Jocelyn is there, tears brimming in her eyes, too, and he plants a fierce kiss to her mouth, careful not to crush Joanna between them. Their baby girl has a big set of lungs, though, and they're straight back to cooing and loving her and laughing until she falls asleep.

It feels like a dream.

That should've been the first damn clue.

V.

Life should be fucking grand about now, but it's not. Jim is freezing his ass off, back to hating winters, his cuts from yet another bar fight pulling and stinging with each gust of wind. He licks his dry lips, which is a mistake, and trudges through, one foot in front of the other with no destination in mind because he's not ready to go home yet and all the bars are closed. He should have known that he'd end up back at the Snow Queen's domain for another stint.

He shakes that thought loose because it sounds like a prison sentence, and it's not. He expects to see her, appearing out of nowhere from the snow like she always does, her clear blue eyes grave and her features subtly disapproving, but he doesn't. She's probably busy saving kids worth more than he is right now.

Well, at least her bar is always open.

Jim's a little surprised to see a familiar face there after he stomps through the door, shaking off the snow and the chill, but he grins as if it's only been yesterday instead of years and claps Bones on the shoulder, plopping into the stool next to him.

"What the hell happened to your face?" Leonard demands, brows furrowed and scowl already set, and damn if Jim doesn't feel like it's home when Leonard's broad fingers probe his jaw, the firm press of Leonard's thumb sweeping over the arch of his cheek.

"This is where I tell you that the other guy looks ten times worse," Jim laughs.

Leonard shakes his head, his hand dropping back to the bar, and Jim wants to grab it so badly that his fingers twitch, but everything is easy and casual, and the bartender knows to keep 'em coming.

Jim's not sure when they start sharing war stories or depressing-as-hell stories. They never get to the I-miss-you stories. Those just hover in the air between them, linger on their palates like the alcohol swirling warm and heavy in their guts until their tongues are thick with everything they're not saying.

Jim might be a little drunk. He might be a lot drunk. And then Jim decides that he's the kind of person who can admit that he's shit-faced.

As he's slipping off the stool, the momentum nearly carrying him to the floor, Jim faintly wonders if his old place is still open. It takes him several minutes — seconds because it never takes him long to be aware of Leonard's presence — to realize that Leonard is holding his elbow, and he looks slightly less than drunk. Maybe sober. Jim's vision is swimming too badly to tell with any certainty.

"Let me take you home, Jim," Leonard says.

"Sure," Jim slurs, his grin feeling as lopsided as the room.

Home happens to be Leonard's place, and if Jim's mind wasn't working so slow, he'd have thoughts about that.

"How the hell did we end up here?" Leonard mutters.

"We walked?" Jim proposes, thinking maybe Leonard's not so sober, after all.

"I'm not talking about the goddamn house." Leonard's voice doesn't carry any heat, though; it just sounds resigned and strained and tired.

If they're going to have _that talk_ — whatever the hell that talk is — Jim's almost glad he's drunk for it, but the way his heart is pounding, he thinks he might be sobering up. "We fucked up," he says and drops onto the couch, which was a little farther away than he thought, and ends up on the floor between the couch and the coffee table. "Ow."

"Damn it. Are you all right?"

Jim grins, taking the hand Leonard extends to him, but instead of making himself boneless and loose, he bears down, gives one sharp tug, which he can admit was a bad idea. His stomach lurches when Leonard lands on top of him, but he breathes through his nose and commands his stomach not to lose this fucking moment or it'll never get fed again, and relishes Bones' weight on top of him.

"Better now," he says. Or thinks he says. Hard to tell when his tongue doesn't feel like it's moving quite the way he wants it to.

The memory of his time with Leonard rises, so visceral and fast that Jim gasps, and he wants it back, so fucking badly.

"What the—"

Jim's head drops back, hitting the carpeted floor with a thud, and he pushes ineffectually at Leonard's shoulder, his mouth tingling from the kiss cut too short by Leonard's shock and maybe all of Jim's memories are fucked up. "Get off. I need to get home."

"No. You need a glass of water and some good old-fashioned sleep," Leonard says.

Jim's too tired to fight against it and lets Leonard haul him up and onto the couch, a pillow tucked under his head. He may have fallen asleep because Leonard is shaking him awake and pushing a glass of water into his hand. Leonard doesn't let go, his hand wrapped warm around Jim's fingers to hold the glass steady. He pauses to let Jim breathe, urges him to drink until the water's gone.

The ghost of Leonard's fingers stroking down his cheek has to be a dream.

~*~

Jim wakes up to the smell of what is definitely bacon and can only mean breakfast. His stomach growls, and he makes a face at the dry, morning-breath feel of his mouth. He sits up, apparently too fast for his body, and presses a hand to his forehead to regain his equilibrium and silently rail that for the first time ever, he has a hangover.

His steps are careful and slow to the bathroom. Cold water to the face doesn't help the pounding in his skull, but hot water helps a little. When he finally makes it to the kitchen, which seems like a giant, epic quest with how slowly he's moving, he drops immediately into the chair at the dining table and buries his face in the crook of his arms.

"Here."

Jim peeks up and groans.

"Drink it," Leonard says in a tone that pretty much makes clear that no arguments are allowed. "You're probably dehydrated."

With some grumbling for fun, Jim obediently drinks the water. The glass barely touches the table before Leonard gently grasps Jim's chin and turns his face up, taking his mouth in a kiss that makes Jim's heart spike and his eyes fly wide open in shock. Not so much the kiss itself, which hell yes, is really nice, but Leonard initiating it, especially after last night, which is still a little fuzzy. It's not so fuzzy that Jim doesn't remember how Leonard froze when Jim kissed him on a whim.

"Care to explain?" Jim asks when Leonard pulls away, the pad of his thumb sweeping over Jim's bottom lip, eyes so dark and intent that Jim's dick is at attention in seconds.

"Didn't think I needed to," Leonard says, voice rough and full of something that makes Jim feel shivery.

Leonard leans closer until his eyes are the only thing in Jim's vision, his breath puffing warm against Jim's mouth and his hand firm around the back of Jim's neck.

"We're not doing this drunk anymore," Leonard says. "This is our last goddamn chance, Jim, and I don't want to waste it."

Jim swallows, his tongue darting out to wet his lips. The grin is slow but as big and wide and bright as ever as he brings his arms up, snaking them around Leonard's neck. "It's about goddamn time, Bones. Don't fuck it up this time, okay?"

And the scowl Jim earns? Totally fucking worth it in his opinion.


End file.
